A Touch of Hands
by Madin456
Summary: The younger boy narrows his eyes at the mechanic in front of him. Flame child in every sense of the word. "Valdez, did you just burn me when I tried to hold your hand?" — Valdangelo.


**Summary:** The younger boy narrows his eyes at the mechanic in front of him. Flame child in every sense of the word. "Valdez, did you just burn me when I tried to hold your hand?" — Valdangelo.

 **A/N:** Shout-out to hands, the underappreciated heroes we all have.

* * *

A Touch of Hands

* * *

There is something akin to a spark the first time Nico reaches out for Leo's hand, a kind of surprise similar to an electric shock. Seconds of silence pass, a flash of wide eyes, and then the heat on Nico's palm flares before he has to pull back in fear of scorching his skin.

The younger boy narrows his eyes at the mechanic in front of him. Flame child in every sense of the word. "Valdez, did you just burn me when I tried to hold your hand?"

And this is how they begin: Leo stuttering out justifications about how he was caught off guard— _you can't just do something like that so suddenly, Nico_ —and Nico resisting the urge to capture Leo's hand in his own again despite the fire that could ignite directly on his fingertips.

Later, they will both laugh at how ridiculous all this is and share the story with their friends at dinnertime. Later, Nico will tease him and ask with a raised brow, "Are you ready this time?" and it will be Leo who crosses the distance first to grasp at slender hands.

They smile; curved lips, a glimmer in their eyes, and something like a secret passing between them. They hold on to each other. Embrace this new feeling of palm pressed against palm.

Let their hands do the talking.

.

Nico's presence is always a fleeting thing. Never one to stay in the same place for extended periods of time, he hops from camp to camp, country to country, leaving trails of ghostly ever-changing rumours in his wake. Whispers spread about a pale boy in black clothing and a skull ring on his finger—and so he runs in attempt to escape his preconceived reputation, to get away from it all if only for just a minute.

He never intends to stay at Camp Half-Blood for more than a few hours when he visits. There is too much hurt there, too many bad memories and too many nightmares hidden away in the dark corners of Cabin 13, and Nico wonders if he even has anything to return to after all this time.

And he should know by now not to go to Bunker 9—

It's dusty, littered with mechanical equipment at every inch of the room; he can hear the clinging and clanging of hammer against nails from outside the door and he doesn't need to step in to know what he'll find—curly brown hair, sooth-covered pants held together by an over-worn toolbelt, concentrated expression on a normally animated face.

—because every time he goes, he sees Leo, and it makes him stay at Camp Half-Blood longer than he'd planned to.

This time, it's well into the later hours of the night when he stops by Bunker 9. The son of Hephaestus has his head rested on a wooden table, a rare silence spread thin throughout the room as he sleeps. Nico watches the older boy, expression softening as he finally allows himself to let his guard down a little, fingers tentatively reaching out to stroke at Leo's hair. The older boy hums a content sigh at the touch and Nico finds peace here, in this personalized workshop. Next to Leo.

The feeling of comfort comes to Nico in the form of surprise, a sense of unfamiliarity. It's not unwelcome, though, but there's something whispering at him to go, to leave because he's already overextended his visit—maybe it's instinct, habit, his own subconscious telling him not to get used to this feeling of _belonging_.

He murmurs a quiet _goodnight_ to the sleeping boy before retreating, stepping away to shadow travel elsewhere. Almost immediately, he feels warmth around his hand again. Leo stirs awake and reaches out to the fleeing boy, clumsy fingers grasping onto Nico's sleeve in desperate attempt to communicate what his mouth cannot:

 _Stay._

 _Please._

And Nico looks down fondly at Leo and thinks maybe it's their hands that know what is truly in their hearts, after all.

.

The halls he passes are all a blur as Nico sprints toward the infirmary. His arms grow heavier and heavier with each step from the weight he's carrying, shoulders dragged down and feet turning into steel. It takes a lifetime for him to reach the room he's looking for, too long, and he kicks the door open brashly. He stands huffing to catch his breath in the doorway, multiple pairs of eyes snapping up in his direction at the commotion.

Will drops the papers he had been holding onto a nearby table, stepping forward cautiously. "Nico, what—"

"H-help him!" The dark-haired boy blurts. He raises up the body in his arms, and he's shaking just a little, he notices now that the initial panic has died down.

To his left, Will is quickly clearing out a bed and gestures him to come over. "Okay, just set him down here. Gently," the doctor says, inspecting the new patient. He recognizes this boy as Leo Valdez from his curly hair, pointy ears, and permanent smirk on his face even when he's unconscious. "What happened?"

Nico swallows. "We were—sparring."

Will grabs a bottle of ointment from one of the drawers and applies it over some cuts on the son of Hephaestus' skin. "You were sparring and then he just, what, passed out?"

"No, um, he had this new invention that he wanted to test out, you know. And he told me not to hold back so I guess I hit him a little too hard."

The older boy laughs lightly at that. "Probably should've held back a bit."

"Yeah."

"Well, no need to worry too much. The injuries aren't severe and he should wake up within a couple of hours, a day at most. You're welcome to stay here for a while if you want but I've got to check on a few other patients." Will pats him on the shoulder before getting up and walking over to the other side of the room.

Nico glances down at the brown-haired boy and admits that Leo's condition isn't too bad; as Will said, he probably doesn't need to worry as much as he currently is. But he can feel the guilt thrashing in his heart, the stares burning into his back, the whispers blowing against his ears.

There are only about four or five other people in the infirmary with them and no one is paying attention to anything other than their own problems. Despite that, it's like the world is pointing in his direction, saying, _look._

Child of death. Destroyer of life. He's the one walking on a trail of corpses, the murky stench of rotting flesh and decaying bodies staining his clothes. _Get out,_ they tell him. The area of healing is no place for someone who wears the image of a skull on his finger. What is he doing lingering, dwelling, staying in a place of life? How can anyone possibly recover with a son of Hades contaminating the air in the room?

But when Nico examines Leo lying still on the infirmary bed, covered in sheets of white as if he's already died and his body is being prepared for a funeral, he can't just leave the mechanic there alone. He can't. There is something in his heart that breaks every time he sees how inhumanly motionless Leo is in this state, the little hitches indicating the older boy's constant struggle for oxygen.

He reaches out to hold the older boy, to let him know that he won't abandon even if people say otherwise. And slowly, with Nico's pale hands clasped around Leo's limp ones, the son of Hades stays by the unconscious boy's side hour after hour and breathes life into Leo's body.

.

It's rare to see Leo being completely still. In fact, Nico thinks, this might be the first time he's witnessed a phenomenon like this.

The piece of metal Leo had been tinkering with earlier lies abandoned on the floor, tools and equipment all pushed to the side. He's facing away from Nico, hands hidden in the sleeves of his sweater, and for once, there's no sound at all coming from the son of Hephaestus.

Nico is almost scared to move, unsure of how to approach the situation. Slowly, he crawls over to where Leo is and makes room on the floor for himself beside the older boy. "Even the great Leo Valdez has insecurities sometimes, hmm?" He says the words softly, no judgement in his tone at all; but even so, he can feel Leo stiffen up as if he's preparing to bolt.

"It's okay," Nico murmurs, tentatively reaching over to unwrap Leo's hands from within his sleeves. His fingers graze over the surface of calloused skin, rough and dry.

"No, it's not—"

"—I know." And Nico does know; knows what it feels like to want to hide all the time when no one understands you. Knows what it's like to think that it's _not_ okay, that nothing _ever_ seems okay, but—"Is this why you freaked out when I tried to hold your hand the first time?"

When Leo doesn't say anything, Nico shuffles closer. He turns over his own hands, palms facing up so that they're fully exposed. There are patches of damaged skin on his hands too, hardened by years of swinging a sword and gripping the base too tightly. The creases are painfully visible and because of his how pale he is, the blue veins beneath the surface seem to pop out more. Dirt has found a home under his fingernails, permanently residing there without offering to pay rent.

He's sure that Percy's hands are the same. Annabeth, Jason, Piper, even Drew—they're all the same. No demigod has perfectly smooth skin.

And this time, when Nico threads his fingers between Leo's, it's to prove that even a mechanic's hands can be gentle, too.

.

It's a passing thought that comes to him at times, just a possibility he likes to consider: _does Leo have the landscape of his hands memorized?_

Because he feels the tapping of Leo's fingers whenever their hands are locked together, drumming little patterns on the mountains of his knuckles and the seas that dip in between his joints. The son of Hephaestus probably isn't aware that he's doing it, that he presses odd rhythms onto Nico's fingers. Sometimes they mean nothing; sometimes they mean everything.

.. / .-.. - ...- . / -.- - ..-

.. / .-.. - ...- . / -.- - ..-

 _I love you._

It's when those three words are spelled out on his skin, his wrists, over the curves of his fingers, Nico squeezes back, feels their galaxies collide, and gathers stardust in the space between their palms.

So, this is how they end: hands reaching out and settling in place around each other. Embracing the comfort of prolonged contact and quick high-fives. Grabbing hold of something familiar in the vast unknown space that is life.

Making their way through all of it together. Hand in hand.

* * *

 **A/N:** Um. Hands. Yes. They're useful, aren't they?

~Madin456.


End file.
